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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24019300">our public love made private for we two-by-four</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/oonaseckar/pseuds/oonaseckar'>oonaseckar</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>All New X-Men (Comics), X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men (Original Timeline Movies), X-Men - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Pre-Poly, Threesome - F/M/M, ménage à trois</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-03 00:23:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>676</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24019300</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/oonaseckar/pseuds/oonaseckar</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles has two adopted sisters - Raven and Emma.</p><p>And Erik, plucked out of the water, has more on his hands than he can possibly handle.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Emma Frost &amp; Charles Xavier, Emma Frost &amp; Erik Lehnsherr, Emma Frost/Charles Xavier, Emma Frost/Erik Lehnsherr, Emma Frost/Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier, Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>our public love made private for we two-by-four</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Work title adapts a quote by Patrick Kavanagh, Irish poet and husband of Rosamond Lehmann's daughter.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It's the third time that Charles climbs on top of Erik and pulls his dick out, that Erik's faintly aware there's something – wrong? Something off. The fourth, when he definitely realizes: that he's engaged in a threesome, without so much as a by-your-leave. Not so <em>very</em> polite. Charles isn't a <em>real</em> Brit, after all, just a forger's masterful facsimile.</p><p>But anyway. Laters, right?</p><p>xxx</p><p>It's never <em>not</em> going to be a surprise, to be pulled out of freezing Atlantic waters by a telepath.</p><p>To be met on board by a second, pouring you a stiff drink as she conducts a conversation with your rescuer to which you are in no way privy, is really a little bit much.</p><p>Plenty of things were readily settled on the boat, at the mansion, at the CIA headquarters. That their objectives were compatible, if not identical, himself and Xavier. That they could co-operate on practicalities, and argue out fine points like <em>ethics</em> and <em>politics</em> later. That Xavier was going to stay <em>the hell out of his head</em> during all of it.</p><p>Emma, though: she wasn't privy to that agreement. An oversight, in hindsight.</p><p>Erik has never <em>not</em> guarded his privacy with zealous care. Even without his personal mission, and satellite activities regarding old Nazis and useful funds, it's a point of principle. Privacy is one of the first things you lose, when your people are being treated as cattle: not even that, perhaps. Perhaps a crop, cut down, used and the leavings discarded.</p><p>Around a telepath, how much more important privacy becomes. Around a telepath you've developed an unfortunate, time-wasting, entirely regrettable weakness for, then it's essential.</p><p>If he never thinks to secure <em>Emma's</em> promise, regarding keeping her mouth shut - if not mental privacy - then it's probably telling. He has read a little psychology, along with a little of everything else, the perfect auto-didact. Some part of him wanted Xavier to know. Must have. Knowing without <em>knowing</em>, deniability, that's the thing.</p><p>Emma's a lovely creature, with her own charms, for sure, but he can't focus on her somehow, well before he understands why. But she's useful, and in an all-business sense he appreciates her, from the first morning after the anti-climactic night before. Charles makes breakfast, serves up, some truly appalling surely hand-knitted tank-top over grey flannels doing its utmost to smear his beauty. Not quite succeeding, even then.</p><p>'I feel as if you're owed a lot more explanations than we've given you,' Charles says, earnest and so very nearly British, shoveling fried eggs onto Erik's plate. 'You should fully understand what you may be getting involved with, after all. Emma here, for instance-'</p><p>'Is a telepath,' Erik finishes. Charles' hands are mesmerizing when they seize suddenly, then dance in the air in gesticulations of astonishment. 'Really, Charles. If it's top secret, then the pair of you need to stop <em>locking eyes</em> and having wordless conversations when you have an audience, that's all.'</p><p>Emma smiles across the table, a chilly lovely, and he feels faintly approved. 'How true. Your friend, Shaw, too, Mr Lehnsherr: I know him well.'</p><p>This is the very best way to hold Erik's attention, and for a moment Charles, even Charles, barely exists any more. His co-operation is established in that moment: not that it wasn't a pretty damn sure thing before.</p><p>He has every intention of discarding Charles, when their trajectories cease to coincide. Perhaps it may be difficult – he's aware of the severity of his ailment – but he's trained himself in ruthlessness, with a final completeness. But he must have a <em>taste</em> before then, to at least know what he will be missing, when he concedes that his most urgent priorities must take precedence.</p><p>XXX</p><p>He half expects a peripatetic approach to their search, and certainly Emma arranges a few road trips for them to track down interestingly powered individuals she and Charles have located. Courtesy of Cerebro, and CIA funds, of course. It's Emma who accompanies him, mostly, and he holds down a sulk, perhaps. Well: a glower. A dignified and silent glower.</p>
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